He also likes cucumbers, said mom, Shawn Johnston, but that’s about it.

Maybe if she had pushed more variety for Ryan when he was younger it would be easier now to get him to try something new, she said.

“If I just put out salads and things like that he probably wouldn’t eat it.”

Now, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has released the first new standards for school meals in more than 15 years, and those requirements call for a lot more vegetables and fruit to be offered.

There also are new limits on calories by grade level, and sodium targets that lunch providers will have to try and hit.

The goal of the rules, which go into effect during the next school year, is to introduce healthier foods and appropriate portions to children.

The healthier meal requirements are a key component of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, which was championed by first lady Michelle Obama as part of her Let’s Move! campaign.

But while well meaning, said Tom Pfisterer, director of School Food Services for Oneida-Herkimer-Madison BOCES, the new rules might not taste good.

“Our menus reflect what we know the kids will eat,” he said. “(The new requirements) severely limits us with what we can offer.”

Many of the new requirements, such as leaner milk and whole grains, were recommendations six years ago and most area lunch programs adopted them. And it wasn’t cheap.

“What we got hit with six years ago was a significant food cost,” Pfisterer said.

The new requirements recognize that, and come with 6 more cents per meal in funding for lunch programs around the country.

But it costs more than 6 cents to change the menu, Pfisterer said. When Pfisterer adopted the recommendations, he had to raise the cost of lunch from $1.25 to $2 to absorb the more expensive fruit and vegetable offerings.

He said he already struggles to keep the $4.5 million break-even operation in the black, meet the recommendations and still serve 7,000 lunches, and 1,800 breakfasts every day to 11 districts. Last year, he ran a deficit.

Now, he has to pay greater attention to portions, sodium and calorie content, while still making something students will eat.

“Kids by and large are not being guided at home to eat food like this,” Pfisterer said.

While older students might take what they’re given and at least try it, not all will.

“A young kid will just say yuck, and just push it away,” Pfisterer said. “My ultimate fear is it will drive the kids away.”

Cornell University professors David Just and Brian Wansink have looked at the eating habits of children and believe that removing choice from the menu doesn’t mean more of the veggies and fruit will be eaten.

“The amount of the stuff they can refuse now is much slimmer than before,” Just said. “It doesn’t mean that it ends up in their belly.”

According to Just, three or four out of 10 students would eat a fruit right now.

“One in 10 more might take a fruit or vegetable if you’re requiring them to take a fruit or vegetable,” he said. “The rest of them essentially take a fruit or vegetable and throw it in the garbage.”

If 10 percent more students take and eat a vegetable, that could be considered an improvement, Just said.

“(But) at the same time, it’s hugely expensive,” he said.

He thinks policy makers took too big of a bite out of the choices students have.

“There are other things that have shown to move the needle on fruits and vegetables immensely if you leave choice intact,” he said.

You take that fruit and you put it in a fruit bowl right next to the register then they’re more willing to take it.

“When you have a sort of institutional cafeteria for adults, they do this all the time.”

But parent Johnston likes the new requirements.

“My kids are tiny, but even if you’re not obese it’s important to eat healthy,” she said.

Her daughter, Raelin, 4, won’t have that problem with the new offerings when she’s in kindergarten next year.

“I’ve introduced a lot more foods to her than to (Ryan) when he was younger,” Johnston said. “She will eat through a salad bar voraciously.”

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